Believe it or not, in my lifetime (Boker tov, Boulder!)

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Rasmussen:

In 1954, the average new house cost just over $10,000, a new car was under $2,000, gasoline was less than 30 cents a gallon, and you could buy a magazine for 20 cents. That was also the last time that government spending in America declined from one year to the next....

life-in-the-1950s Woman's Day: Evolution of the Household

.... The stark reality is that despite candidates who promised lower spending and taxes winning just about every election for the past half century, total government spending has kept going up every year since Bill Haley was topping the charts with Rock Around the Clock and a young singer named Elvis Presley made his first commercial recording. That’s the same year the very first edition of Sports Illustrated was published, the Milwaukee Braves welcomed Hank Aaron as a rookie, and the shot clock was invented for the new National Basketball Association.

Ray Kroc met the McDonald brothers and made fast food and franchising history in 1954, and the first Burger King was opened in Miami. Burgers and milkshakes sold for 18 cents each. The Tonight Show aired for the first time in 1954 with Steve Allen as host, and J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was first published....

... recognition that spending has gone up every year since Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe is spread across partisan, ideological, and demographic lines. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Republicans recognize that it’s true, along with 54% of Democrats. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of conservatives believe it, and so do 54% of liberals.

I really hate economics; it seems much more an art than a science. This chart, from The Jawa Report, refutes Rasmussen's premise. Who to believe?

These are the facts - when Democrats control Congress, regardless of who's in the WH, spending goes up and tax revenue goes down. The only time period during which we were making any progress reversing this trend was with a GOP Congress.